Skiing is one of the most popular sports in the world and is participated in both recreationally and competitively by millions of people in many countries throughout the world.
One of the reasons that skiing is so popular is that it is a very physically stimulating and thrilling activity involving high speeds--depending on one's skill level--and also involving many types of movements. Indeed, the essence of skiing is to generally push one's self to do as much as possible and therefore gain as much excitement and enjoyment as possible for one's own skill level.
For example, a beginner will ski down a hill having a shallow decline, which typically has very few bumps or turns, at a fairly low speed and generally without doing anything more than making very shallow turns. While this is not as physically challenging in terms of forces generated as more advanced type of skiing, it is often just as challenging to a beginner as competitive skiing might be to an experienced skier. In essence, what the beginner is doing even at this simple level, is to push his own abilities to the limit and make movements that may cause him to be in a situation that he does not have the skill level to handle, and resultingly the skier will probably fall.
As a beginning skier learns to perform basic maneuvers with confidence, other maneuvers--or similar maneuvers at higher speeds --are attempted. This is done in order to maintain a high level of excitement while skiing. Resultingly, even a more advanced skier is often prone to falling because he is pushing himself to his skill limits by performing new and more difficult maneuvers. Even in the case of advanced or professional skiers, maneuvers are performed that push a skier's skills to the limit. Further, these maneuvers are performed at high speeds. Resultingly, experienced and professional skiers fall occasionally, especially during competitive skiing where one is truly skiing at the limits of one's skill.
In any case, irrespective of the level of ability of a skier, there is a very good chance that any skier will fall at least occasionally. While beginning skiers typically fall more often, and are therefore more frequently exposed to the possibility of injury, more advanced skiers are usually going faster when they fall and therefore may be prone to more severe injury.
Further, skiing is done in an often slippery environment, which makes falling all the more likely.
It has been found that indeed most injuries in skiing are due to falling. Recent statistics indicate that the injury rate is about 3.3 injuries per 1000 skier days. In actuality, it is established that about 40% of downhill skiing injuries go unreported and that the injury rate may even be as high as 10 injuries per 1000 skier days. This translates to possibly as many as 5 million skiing related injuries in the world each year. This statistic has decreased in the last 20 to 30 years partially due to improved equipment such as the skies and boots. Most of the reduction in the injury rate is due to a decrease in lower extremity injuries.
The frequency of upper extremity injuries has not changed significantly, and statistics indicate that slightly under one-half of all skiing injuries are to the upper extremities; and moreover, that 85% of upper extremity injuries are thumb injuries. While at first this may seem slightly unusual, it can be well understood given the nature of how a skier generally tends to fall, and moreover, how a skier generally tends to defend himself when falling. It has been found that most often during a fall a skier will extend his or her arms and hands as a defense against the fall. When a downhill skier falls he typically does not have time to let go of the poles, or even if he does relax his grip on the poles, the poles generally remain within his hands. As the skier gets closer to the ground during the fall, the basket end of the poles usually trails behind which manages to tilt the hand in the forward direction of the thumb. As the skier outstretches his hands to help break the fall, the grip portion of the pole of the ski acts to isolate the thumb from the rest of the fingers which helps leave the thumb exposed and therefore vulnerable to impacting the snow.
Unfortunately, due to the direction of travel of the skier and the specific orientation of one's thumb when one's arms and hand are extended forwardly, the thumb is not designed to bend in the direction of the forces experienced on impact with the snow. In order words, most people's thumbs cannot bend back enough to absorb the impact of the forces experienced. Injury can therefore easily occur when the hands and arms hit the snow, especially at high speeds. Typically, a strong valgus force (bending back) occurs on the thumb, which strains the ulnar colateral ligament. Occasionally there is even a fracture at the base of the first phalanx joint of the thumb.
It has been found that it is very common to have one's thumbs protruding in an extended position, rather than somewhat covered in a closed position. Very commonly --as indicated by the 85% thumb injury rate--thumb impacts directly in the snow. Such injuries are apparently more common if the skier is still holding onto the ski pole. It is generally assumed that the ski pole is in some way responsible for the high frequency of thumb injuries in skiing, since other forms of sport where forward falls are common do not have a high frequency of thumb injuries.
A device that could preclude one's thumb from protruding outwardly while holding a ski pole grip and also that would protect one's thumb from direct impact with snow during a fall could potentially help a skier avoid--or at least lessen the risk of--thumb injuries while skiing.